Selamat siang
- J. Lee Thompson, Fellini, Argento, Mervyn LeRoy and a
few more on
Blu-ray and DVDs of Robert Siodmak to Terry
Jones plus on our Calendar Update list the upcoming
Blu-ray releases showcase works by Monte Hellman,
Peter Watkins, Jean-Pierre Melville, Alex Cox,
Shohei Imamura, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Buster
Keaton, Frank Borzage, William A. Wellman and
more. We have the Feature DVD and Blu-ray
chosen for October
and a new Clips contest with another
Criterion
Blu-ray prize. “Stay solvent and debt free.”

October 10th CONTEST-
identify the clip on the CONTEST PAGE
to win a
Criterion Blu-ray
of Pasolini's
Salo

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ONE VOICE(not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): Not
the most stellar week for reviews although I had some
nostalgic enjoyment out of the
Blu-ray of The Dark Night of the Scarecrow
but I'd say that The Guns of Navarone
now in 1080P was quite a special Home Theater evening. the
more Argento you watch, the more you tend to fandom and
seeing The Cat o' Nine Tails
yet again - this time via Arrow's
Blu-ray package, still produced chills. Although
the film's visuals won't blow you away I liked The Robber a lot! It was a
pleasant surprise to see that Raro have altered to a
hands-off policy for Fellini's I Clowns on Blu-ray thereby
demonstratively advancing beyond their DVD rendering of
earlier this year. The Bad Seed was
entertaining although the transfer is modest - to say the
least. The Hurt/Hawke Moby Dick,
unfortunately had all the thrill of the book. Gregory
thankfully covered the much anticipated The Two Mrs. Carrolls
DVD - an essential, but sometimes controversial, Noir. There are
more Warner Archive discs with Lauren Bacall in Confidential Agent
and Grace Kelly in Green Fire. Eric
covers the Python deviation, and quirky film, Erik the Viking.
Black comedy and Noir rarely gel but
The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry
is highly touted - with good reason.

THIS WEEK's REVIEWS / COMPARISONS

The RobberBD- A champion
marathoner leads a double life as a serial bank robber,
sprinting between fixes (and away from police cavalcades) as
many as three times a day. A lean, visceral study of
pathological compulsion from Austrian director Benjamin
Heisenberg, featuring a riveting central performance by Andreas
Lust (Munich). Blu-ray Release date: October 18th,
2011

I ClownsBD - CLOWNS is not
simply a tribute to clowns; it provides a theoretical context
for the clowns and eccentric characters that populate his
oeuvre. In producing CLOWNS for television (it was shown
on Christmas day on TV in black and white, and then premiered on
the 27th theatrically in Technicolor), Fellini allowed himself
to play with the documentary and cinema mediums. The documentary
crew are not the actual film crew and their their interactions
and the interviews are just as much the work of Fellini... Blu-ray Release Date: October 18th,
2011

The Guns of NavaroneBD - Gregory Peck, Anthony
Quinn and David Niven are Allied saboteurs assigned an
impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island
and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent
the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers. Blacklisted
screenwriter Carl Foreman (High
Noon, The Bridge on the River Kwai)
was determined to re-establish both his name and credibility
after spending most of the 50's working in anonymity. To
accomplish this, he decided to bring Alistair MacLean's
best-selling novel, The Guns of Navarone, to the screen.
Supported by an all-star cast and produced on a grand scale, the
film was an enormous success, receiving seven 1961 Academy
Award(r) nominations (including Best Picture) and winning for
Best Special Effects. Blu-ray
Release Date: October 18th, 2011

Moby DickBD - A psychological
thriller of one man’s decent into madness, the story begins when
inexperienced sailor Ishmael (Charlie Cox, Stardust)
joins the crew of the whaling ship Pequod helmed by the
mysterious and tortured Captain Ahab (Hurt). Though the journey
at first appears to be a routine whaling quest, the crew soon is
unwittingly forced to join Ahab in his singular purpose – to
hunt and kill the enigmatic white whale, which nearly killed him
years before. As they sail across the desolate ocean, Ahab’s
obsession to seek the deadly whale they call Moby Dick, no
matter the cost, soon proves fatal. Never straying from his
quest to hunt and kill the monstrous whale, the crew realizes
that their captain is so blinded by vengeance that he may soon
lead them all to an ultimate peril.
Blu-ray Release date: October 4th, 2011

The Cat o' Nine TailsBD - More recently (and not
just in light of some of Argento's more recent flops), The
Cat o' Nine Tails has started to earn a better reputation.
Franciscus and Arno are engaging leads (with more chemistry than
Franciscus and Spaak but it might be argued that she is supposed
to be icy rather than wooden) and the mystery fairly diverting
(although it is predicated on the notion of chromosomal
imbalance causing psychosis) and amusing (including a
Hitchcockian comic car chase and some other humorous bits).
While Enrico Menczer's cinematography is not as visually
striking (although the Techniscope compositions are nicely
composed) as Argento's work with other cinematographers, the
murders are striking and Ennio Morricone's main theme "Lullaby
in Blue" is a nice compliment to his work on the previous
Argento film. The Arrow Blu-ray
Release Date: September 26th, 2011

The Dark Night of the ScarecrowBD - When young Marylee
Williams (Tonya Crowe) is found viciously mauled, all hell
breaks loose in her small rural town. Officious postmaster Otis
P. Hazelrigg (Charles Durning) leads a gang of bigots in pursuit
of the suspect: her mentally challenged friend Bubba Ritter
(Larry Drake). Finding him hiding inside a scarecrow, they exact
brutal mob "justice"...only to discover a tragic mistake! Now a
strange apparition stalks the land seeking each of them out, as
the legend of the Scarecrow begins.
Blu-ray Release date: October 11th, 2011

The Bad SeedBD - Can evil be inherited?
That's the question posed by Maxwell Anderson in his stage play
The Bad Seed. This 1956 film... adaptation stars many
actors from the Broadway version, including Nancy Kelly, Patty
McCormack, Henry Jones and Eileen Heckart. Young McCormack plays
Rhoda, a too-good-to-be-true grade schooler who occasionally
exhibits a vicious streak whenever things don't turn out her
way. During a picnic, one of Rhoda's schoolmates is drowned; the
victim is a boy who'd won a penmanship medal that Rhoda had
coveted. Blu-ray Release date:
October 11th, 2011

Green Fire - A story of
emerald mining and romantic misadventures in South America,
Green Fire (1955) stars Stewart Granger, Grace Kelly, Paul
Douglas and the beauty of Columbia's mountains in dazzling color
and Cinemascope. The plot follows two Americans, Rian (Stewart
Granger) and Vic (Paul Douglas), as they search for priceless
gems in a hot and often hostile terrain. During their hunt they
encounter Catherine (Grace Kelly), a coffee plantation owner,
and her brother Donald (John Ericson). Rian's quest to find his
emeralds soon presents a problem for Catherine, who owns the
land where the treasure lies. DVD Release Date: May 28th,
2010

The Two Mrs. Carrolls -
Matrimony means different things to different people. For
temperamental artist Geoffrey Carroll, it means he’s in his
element. And out of his mind. In their only screen pairing, two
of film’s all-time greats star in a psychological thriller rife
with pelting rain and pealing bells, blackmail and murder,
calculated dread and an unnerving finale. Humphrey Bogart
portrays Geoffrey, who’s making a habit of poisoning one wife
and marrying another when the former no longer inspires his
canvases. Barbara Stanwyck plays his current wife Sally, who
puts two and two together and comes up with six – as in six feet
under, the place she’ll be if she continues to accept the glass
of milk Geoffrey regularly offers as a nightcap. Alexis Smith
also stars as a predatory neighbor who becomes the object of
Geoffrey’s thirst for feminine variety. Drink up, thriller fans!
DVD Release Date: March 1st, 2011

Confidential Agent - In
pre-World War II London, Spanish agent Denard struggles to close
a high-level business deal that will strike a blow against
fascists in his native country. But industrialists not yet alert
to the threat of fascism reject him. A teenage ally caught up in
his efforts is murdered. And the mission itself seems a failure.
Yet neither the story nor Denard will stop there. Charles Boyer
plays Denard and Lauren Bacall is a jaded industrial heiress who
assists him in this intricate spy drama. For her second screen
appearance, Bacall took a critical thumping, yet her presence
smolders. The film itself still satisfies, thanks in no small
measure to James Wong Howe’s atmospheric cinematography and the
story craft of source novelist Graham Greene. DVD Release
Date: March 1st, 2011

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry
- A pitch-dark comedy in whose ironies and perversities Alfred
Hitchcock might have wallowed, The Strange Affair of Uncle
Harry fell instead to Robert Siodmak, who did a professional
if not inspired job. George Sanders plays a fabric-designing
bachelor living with his two sisters in a New England
textile-mill town. Into his ordered, dull life comes Ella
Raines, a sophisticate from the New York head office. They fall
in love, plan to marry. But possessive younger sister Geraldine
Fitzgerald takes exception to the plans; dawdling, malingering
and needling, she pries the pair apart. When the truth dawns on
Sanders, he extracts his revenge by means of poison purchased to
euthanize an old dog. Alas, the fatal dose goes astray, as
happens with such nasty chemicals.... With its hints of
unhealthy vibes between brother and sister, the movie offered
fare daring for its day. And so, among several endings
reportedly filmed, Uncle Harry opts for one thought to ruffle
the fewest feathers. DVD Release Date: October 31st, 2007

Erik the Viking - In the
age of Ragnorok, when all the earth has been laid waste by snow
and ice, one Viking must take his men into battle against the
very gods themselves in order to bring back the sun. Meet Erik
(Tim Robbins), the world s most sensitive Norse warrior, a man
with little time for pillage and no taste for rape. Erik killed
a girl once and he feels very badly about it. Erik isn t really
like the other Vikings but now he must take his warrior clan to
the gates of Valhalla itself, braving harsh seas, terrifying
creatures and horrifically atonal singing along the way. DVD
Release Date: October 10th, 2011